If you’re a runner and have an iPhone or Android phone, you really need to download RunKeeper.

So I was kind of excited when the NY Times announced that they were adding offline support for their iPhone app. I tried it on the subway today and it worked perfectly.

Now, I wish that Apple would add offline capability to the iPhone version of Safari so that I could do this with just a normal mobile Web site.

So… my current iPhone app addiction has a competitor for my attention, Mafia Wars. It’s a Facebook game from the folks at Zynga.

The functionality is almost EXACTLY the same as Mafia LIVE.  Would be interesting to see who came out first.

While this game is awesome, I like that Mafia LIVE is based on the iPhone because then I can play it during the down time that I have that’s not infront of my computer.

I’d love for Mafia LIVE to take a cue from Mafia Wars and pull Facebook Friends into it when Facebook Connect comes to the iPhone.

So which of these Mafia games are you playing?  I see that SGN just released a Mafia game for the iPhone.  I’m going to review that one next.

Here are two blog posts that my co-worker John Nelson wrote about the game, with tons of tips.

• http://www.dailyrelevance.com/mafia/mafia-live-tips-and-updates
• http://www.dailyrelevance.com/mafia/mafia-iphone-app

Also looks like they have a Get Satisfaction customer support page, with all kinds of the discussions of the game including tips.

• http://getsatisfaction.com/aftershock

At the start of the game, you’re a kid on the street who’s trying to start the biggest mafia family.  There are jobs for you to do, you fight other families (who are other people who play the game), you win money, buy equipment, and you buy real estate.  As time passes, collect skills, and experience, the more you have the ability to do.

As if this wasn’t addictive enough, the game has a bigger social component to it.  You create your mafia family by teaming up with your friends.  For example, my mafia family code is 200313114. (Invite me to your family ).  In the game you can enter my code and we can become a bigger family to do bigger things.   It even has address book integration so that you can send invites.

It’s a really fun game.

The most interesting part of the game is that it’s SUPER low-fi.  It’s not super fancy graphics.  It’s probably just a mobile Web site.

I wonder what kind of numbers the game gets.  I hope they’re tracking the numbers.  I bet they’re getting some crazy high engagement levels.

Now they just need to find out a way to keep people paying them money so that they can continue making cash even from the folks who’ve been playing the game for a while.  Would it be through ads?  Would you have to upgrade to a 2.0 version of the game, kind of like with the new World of Warcraft packs?

Well that all changed today…  I found out that Electronic Arts released Sim City for the iPhone.

Sim City is a game that I grew up with.  It’s a chunk of my computer game playing child hood.  When I saw it was released for the iPhone, I didn’t hesitate to buy it.

I’ve noticed that a lot of reviewers are like… well it’s missing this or that.  But it’s frickin’ Sim City on my iPhone.  I’m blown away to the extent that they were able to load so much of the game into a portable version.

There is everything from picking terrains, to changing taxes, meeting your mayoral advisors, to disasters, and building the water system.  Like seriously… seems like they put everything in.

I killed a couple of hours today doing nothing but playing this game.  I will definitely be playing this when I’m on on the subway commuting too and from work in Washington DC.

If like me you grew up on Sim City and you have an iPhone,  I’d recommend that you go buy this game for $9.99.  There aren’t many iPhone games that I’d say would be worth it.  This is worth it.

SGN has released iFun. With this, you can tether your iPhone or iPod Touch together with your computer.  The game is on your computer but you swing your iPhone like a golf club.   After you swing, you’ll see the result on the screen of your computer… the ball flying throug the air on the golf cours.e

This is really impressive.  I can see how things like iGolf and iBowl were kind of first order projects to get to the bigger project which is iFun.  I can see folks coming together, all bringing their iPhones, and playing golf together.

Check out their video:

This is one of the first cases where I’ve real innovation on the iPhone platform.  I hope we’ll see more soon.

Have you played iFun yet?  What do you think?  Also… what is the most innovative thing you’ve seen thus far for the iPhone?

Heh… anyone up for a golf game?

Does Apple really want the iPhone to be a credible enterprise device?  This kind of stuff can’t happen.  I can understand a couple of hours but most of the day??

I’m starting to depend on the iPhone as a way for me to do work.  It’s part of my life.  When it doesn’t work, I feel shut off.

When Blackberry service goes down,  Washington DC starts to look like a scene from a Left Behind movie.

I’ve already spoken about my love for the Pandora app.  The next one I thought I’d write about was the Facebook app (iTunes Link).

It has 5 major sections: Home, You, Friends, Chat, and Inbox.

The Home Screen doesn’t give me access to my newsfeed but it shows me all the recent status updates of my friends.  From here I can quickly update my own status or post a photo.

The You section allows you to see your own profile information, wall, and photos. It’s not that exciting.

For the Friends section, you can quickly page through all of the different friends that you have in Facebook.   This is awesome.  If more of my friends posted their contact info on Facebook, I could see this becoming kind of an Address book in the cloud.  In this section you can also, view your friends photos and write on their walls.

The next section is really cool.  In the Chat tab, you can talk with your friends from your iPhone to their Facebook Chat accounts.

Lastly, you can check your Facebook message inbox.  Nothing to exciting here.

One thing that is noticeably absent is the ability to accept friend requests.  This is something that you can do from the iPhone Web app.

This raises the question.  Why does this need to be an iPhone app?  Other then having access to the camera, which is kind of compelling but not that big of a deal, why does this need to be an iPhone app.

With the Web app, you can actually see the whole newsfeed and not just status updates.  Generally the design seems to be more inlign with what your used to seeing on Facebook.com.  With 3G, the Web app is just as responsive as the software application.

So… why get the Facebook iPhone software app?